


she was the maker of the song she sang

by maskedlady



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Angst I guess, bear with me i'm bad at tagging stuff, think about tsoa after briseis arrives. it should more or less all be there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21862114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maskedlady/pseuds/maskedlady
Summary: the song of achilles, but from briseis' point of view
Comments: 3
Kudos: 42





	she was the maker of the song she sang

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Song For Patroclus](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5694730) by [Rainbow_Femme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainbow_Femme/pseuds/Rainbow_Femme). 



> hello and welcome to the mess that is my writing.  
> i'm bad at consistency, bad at finishing things, and bad at writing introductions. basically i'm bad at everything a writer should be good at. i know. i am posting this for two reasons: one, i like it, two, hopefully posting it will force me to finish it. bad reasons? maybe. do i care? no.  
> anyway, the main reason i'm embarassing myself by writing notes is this:  
> since briseis can't speak greek, and you probably can't either, i'm putting what the greeks say in ancient greek. if you do know ancient greek, then you probably know it better than me, and please bear in mind that i'm a student and in order to do this i'm translating things from english to italian to greek, and anyway, i don't know everything. if you think something is incorrect/have a better translation you are probably right and you're welcome to say it.  
> translations are in the notes at the end of each chapter. some of the dialogue is canon, some is not.

The Achaeans come in high summer, during harvest.

From the village, they saw the ships pass, roughly a month before, sailing to Troy; and even before that, rumours flew to precede them, news that there would be a great war in the city, tales of a kidnapped bride and an army of barbarians coming to her rescue.

And so it started.

Briseis knew stories of them; fearsome warriors, but savages, always at war with each other. She had sat at her father’s knee, at the passing storytellers’, listening wide-eyed as they spun tales of gods and mortals cruelly punished, of heroes and warrior women, of rewards and eternal torments. And others, more recent, of small wars, of family feuds, of raped goddess-brides.

But the truth isn’t stories.

The truth is battle shouts that pierce the still air, men in armour running out of the forest, village people scattering in fields that turn gradually red. The truth is screams, her father lying in a pool of red, houses on fire. The truth is running through the trees, catching glimpses of fighting, falling, hearing footsteps behind her. The truth is fear, blinding terror, and a hand grasping her arm and dragging her back to the ravaged village.

They bind her wrists and ankles and toss her out of the way, and she is forced to watch as they swifly cut through the remaining villagers. She knows every one of them. Her childhood friends, her family, fall under spears and swords, at the hand of the Western savages. A warrior in shining armour leads the charge, moving like the sun on water, like a snake that snaps and bites; she wonders, briefly, whether he is one of the cruel Achaean gods, and what they have done to deserve such a punishment.

The Greeks cut the bindings at her ankles and pull her up, make her walk. She twists to look behind as they set fire to her home.

They put her on a platform, in the middle of a square between tents. Their camp is on the shore, and she can smell the sea; closer to the city than her village, beyond the hills, but not close enough that she can see Ilios, on the other side of the vast, vast plains. They used to say, in the village, that the two rivers that cut through the plain are sacred, home to gods. She wonders if it's true, and then wonders whether a god would come to her rescue; but no one came to save the townsfolk, so why her?

A tall warrior steps forward. He is dark, broad-shouldered, with a smug look on his cruel face; the commander, she guesses. She turns away from him as he says something to his soldiers, and her gaze lands on a pair standing to the side. One is the shining warrior from the village, still stained with her people’s blood; he has taken off his helmet, and his hair shines golden under the sun. Next to him stands one she has never seen; just a bit taller than his companion, he’s the opposite in every way, dark and handsome—but humanly so, with kind eyes that are looking straight at her.

He grabs the warrior’s arm and says a few sharp words in his ear. The golden one turns, surprised. And then Briseis looks away, because the commander has turned to her again, and he’s watching her and about to speak.

But the voice that rings out isn’t his. The golden warrior steps forward and speaks in a clear, loud tone. _Pelides?_ the commander asks. The warrior—Pelides—speaks some more, and the commander frowns, but then he nods, and the warrior speaks again and the other soldiers are laughing. He looks at her and says a single word, one she knows. _Come_ , he says, imperiously, and turns to go.

Briseis follows, and she isn’t sure what she’s more afraid of, what’s waiting ahead or what she knows she just avoided. She feels the eyes of the commander on her back, following her until they are out of sight.

The warrior’s camp is removed from the main one, on a hill close to the forest. It is peaceful, near-empty; there are only a few soldiers loitering around, and they quickly disappear when they see them approach. Briseis wonders whether they are afraid of their commander—because of course, the warrior must be their commander. She wonders whether he is a prince, too. He probably is. 

A prince, raiding villages and killing peasants.

He steps forward, drawing a knife, and she only barely stops herself from jerking away. _Eá me_ , says the other one, and the prince hands him the knife and steps back, almost shyly. _Lüso se_ , he says. She doesn’t understand. She looks from the knife to him to the prince standing a bit back. They are both looking at her and she can’t decipher the expression in their eyes.

The one with the knife shakes his head and holds out his hands, bringing the knife closer to her. _Oukhi_ , he says, _Ou blapsomen se. Lüso se_.

Briseis is terrified.

He steps forward and extends his free hand. She flinches away. She’s too afraid to notice the tormented expression in his kind eyes, how the creases on his brow are worry, not anger, too afraid to see anything beyond the knife and the hand holding it confidently, clearly used to the grip.

At least until he turns and kisses the prince.

Her fear is momentarily replaced by surprise, quickly followed by confusion. She heard stories of what happens to village girls, to war prisoners. She thought, _better death_. Now she knows it doesn't matter what she thought.

But these men clearly have no need for slave-girls.

The one with the knife meets her eyes. He points to her bound hands, to the blade. He brings his wrists together and mimes a slashing motion.

Cut her bindings?

_Kalos?_

He is looking at her, and the expression on his face is kind and earnest.

Warily, she holds her hands out to him.

He leads her up the hill, sits on the grass and motions her down next to him. Briseis sits, gingerly. He gives her ice for her face—bruised—and points to her leg, to the cut that made her stumble and fall, that let her be captured. _Oroen?_ he asks. She lets him clean and bandage the wound. He does it in a different way than the village healers, and she follows his movements, curious, diffident.

Then he takes her back to the camp, to a tent that wasn’t there before. She hesitates, wary. He walks in, and because she doesn’t know what else to do, she follows him. He points to things, saying words she doesn’t know— _hüdor, trophe, stromata, esthetes._ A bowl of water, food, covers, and clothes that look like they’re his. Before she has time to turn back to him, he leaves.

Briseis stays in the tent. She looks around once more—tastes the water and the food, lays the blankets out on the pallet. Are they for her?

Apparently so. She doesn’t sleep that night, spends it watching the entrance instead, but no one comes in.

The world is forever changed, but the sun rises all the same. She sees the light grow from inside her tent, and not much later she hears the camp wake, shouts of soldiers and clanking of armour, crackling of fire and the smell of food cooking. She casts a glance to her own uneaten stores, but she isn’t hungry.

Eventually, there are sounds of chariots, horses, a great number of feet all beating the earth in unison, and the camp falls gradually silent. Briseis sits on her makeshift bed and worries at the frayed edge of the tunic she’s wearing. It’s too big for her, hanging past her knees, but it’s better than her bloodied, stained dress.

There are still people in the camp, she can hear them, see their silhouettes against the fabric. Do not all soldiers go raiding? Whose village are they going to pillage today, whose life are they going to destroy?

She wants to get out of the tent, see the light on the water, feel the wind on her face. She wants to bury herself under the ground and never let the sun find her again.

In the middle of the morning, she stands up, walks around. She fumbles with the flap of the entrance and peeks outside. Two men are sitting in the shade of a tree, polishing blades; she sees an elder by the remains of a fire, bent over a tablet covered in the the invaders’ strange, pointed writing. The man with the kind eyes, the prince’s shadow, is standing on the beach, his feet buried in the cool sand. He starts turning around, and Briseis lets the fabric fall and hurries back in the tent, her heart thumping.

She cowers in the furthermost corner as his footsteps approach for the seventh time that morning. The sun casts his shadow on the tent’s fabric, and Briseis holds her breath as he raises one hand. For the seventh time that morning, he hesitates, lets it fall, and turns away.

They do that for a few more times, a twisted game of hide-and-seek where she is too terrified of being found to let herself be seen and yet unable to stop daring fate. Sometimes she watches him for entire minutes—gathering wood, skipping stones, sitting on the beach with his eyes on the sea—before he turns and she goes back into hiding. Sometimes he almost comes to call her; sometimes she waits with her heart in her throat, but he stays away.

Eventually, he catches her. Briseis turns away as quickly as she can, but it’s too late. _Mene!_ he calls.

She freezes and stands, unable to move, as he approaches with swift steps. 

_Khaire_ , he says. A greeting? She doesn’t know how to answer, so she stays silent. He looks at her for a few moments. _Ar’hüpnous agathos?_

She doesn’t reply. She doesn’t understand. She is, suddenly, afraid again; what if he gets angry because she’s not answering? Should she just say something, anything? She knows a few words in Greek, but without knowing what he asked…

Before she can make up her mind, he speaks again. _Patroclus_ , he says, pointing at himself.

She looks at him. Looks away. What does it mean? Is it his name? Is it a command? What should she do?

_Patroclus_ , he repeats, slower. It _is_ his name. Briseis hesitates. Should she tell him her own?

She feels her fingers going numb. She looks at her hand and sees she’s gripping the flap of the tent, the cloth wound around her fingers so tightly that her skin is turning red. He follows her gaze, and a strange look passes through his eyes. Pity? Guilt? Shame?

He bows his head and makes to leave. _Leipso se_.

She lets go of the tent and twists her fingers together, looks at the angry red lines adorning them, looks at the man’s—Patroclus'—lowered head, thinks about the bandage on her leg and the ice long melted in the tent. _Briseis_ , she whispers.

He stops, looks up. She looks away.

_Ti?_

_Briseis_. She touches a hand to her chest, like he did before.

_Briseis_ , he repeats. She nods.

Patroclus smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> translations (all dialogue is canon):  
> eá me — let me (patroclus to achilles)  
> lüso se — i am going to free you (patroclus to briseis)  
> oukhi, ou blapsomen se, lüso se — no, we will not hurt you, i am going to free you (patroclus to briseis)  
> kalos? — all right? (patroclus to briseis). not literal, but the closest i could find.  
> oroen? — may i see? (patroclus to briseis)  
> hüdor, trophe, stromata, esthetes — water, food, blankets, clothes  
> mene! — wait! (patroclus to briseis). literally, stay.  
> khaire — hello (patroclus to briseis)  
> ar'hüpnous agathos? — did you sleep well? (patroclus to briseis)  
> leipso se — i will leave you (patroclus to briseis)  
> ti? — what? (patroclus to briseis)


End file.
